A York woman imprisoned for murder could not hug her son as he lay sick in hospital because she was handcuffed throughout her visit to his bedside.

Pressure was mounting today for Catherine Sumoge, 46, to be allowed to visit her son, Carl Gillard, in York District Hospital without wearing the cuffs.

Sumoge, 46, is serving a life sentence at Durham jail for the murder of her lover, John Etheridge, at their Huntington home in 1994.

She stabbed Mr Etheridge, a former butcher, three times with a kitchen knife. At her trial, she pleaded self-defence, but a jury unanimously convicted her of murder.

Campaigners against domestic violence are hoping to win an appeal hearing for Sumoge.

Today they called on prison chiefs to relax their rules to allow her the freedom to hold Carl, 25 who has been moved from the intensive care unit to a side ward.

He was today described as "poorly" by hospital staff. The nature of his illness is unclear.

During a visit to the hospital on Tuesday, Sumoge was handcuffed to a prison officer throughout, barring her from holding and comforting her sick son.

Margaret Manning, of the Campaign Against Domestic Violence, said: "A mother should be able to hold her son in hospital, to tidy his hair and have some contact with him."

Fellow campaigner Angela Waller added: "We don't want to have any more prisoners shackled when they go to see relatives on compassionate grounds."

Campaigners are lobbying the prison and probation service to have the handcuffs removed on future visits.

Dave Thompson, the deputy governor at Durham jail, said it was prison service policy to assess each case individually but that inmates were often handcuffed to prison officers during outside visits.

He said: "The procedures and guidelines have been adhered to. We do sympathise with the situation. The family involved must find it very difficult, but our overriding priority is to guarantee the custody of the prisoner."

He said all cases were subject to review but added publicity could often backfire, making the prison service more cautious during escorted outside visits.

Today a pressure group for prisoners said handcuffs should only be used in "exceptional circumstances".

Frances Crook, the director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: "Handcuffs for anybody going out, male or female, to visit somebody who is ill or attend a family funeral, should only be used in very exceptional circumstances. That's really the bottom line."

A spokesman for the Home Office said the policy on the use of handcuffs was left to the discretion of individual prison governors. He said a number of options were open to governors including refusing inmates an outside visit or allowing them to go unescorted.

However, he added, rules tended to be more stringent for inmates serving life sentences than for those in low security or open jails or inmates reaching the end of their sentences.

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